The Coals are Beginning to Glow
by Td03
Summary: If it's possible, Inaho would do this.


**The Coals are Beginning to Glow**

If it's possible, Inaho would do this.

* * *

"We played hide and seek in waterfalls~"

Inaho lightly punched the on button and waited for the computer to finish loading. He was thankful to be born on 1999. According to Yuki-nee, who was eight years older than him, computers around the year of 1995 had to take ten minutes just to dial up.

"We were younger~ We were younger~"

Once the library's computer was up and running Inaho wasted no time opening the internet access. Another reason to be glad he was born late, wireless internet existed and Inaho can access information like nobody's business, relatively speaking. Yuki-nee wished to have a at least a functioning flip-phone with wireless internet or any other form of messaging that was not as tough as MSN messenger, but Inaho disagreed with her opinion for aiming low. If she wasn't going to have a laptop or a tablet, there's no need to settle for a phone and waste what little money they can scrounge up for the charge and constant use of and buying of internet quota. Using the public library's computer is one of the best decisions Yuki-nee has ever come up with.

"Let's say sunshine for everyone~"

 _I've been hearing that song for three days now._ Inaho eyed the girl who was sitting two seats beside him. She was using the computer too, and she has an earphone, and Inaho was irritated that the librarian wasn't kicking her out for singing (the same song over and over) for days. Of course the librarian wasn't storming in like the female Yokai reincarnated. Inaho chose this spot for a reason. It was secluded enough from constant scrutiny (however constant a scrutiny from chatty librarians) and wasn't picked often by people to sit because the air conditioners doesn't reach it very well.

This red-headed teenager singing must be picking the same spot for similar reasons. She has a beautiful voice, but Inaho couldn't appreciate it due to her fondness for repeatedly singing the same song for three days, over and over – at least five times a day. At least Yuki-nee knows better than to be repetitive around Inaho.

"But as far as I can remember~"

The young boy pinched his nose and reminded himself that interrupting and scolding the older child might cause a commotion. Inaho found that people have a strange concept of expecting younger people to give them the utmost respect just because they were born zero point one seconds earlier.

"We've been migratory animals~"

Inaho swiftly typed in the Wi-Fi password. When the Google finished loading 2 seconds after that Inaho checked on the news. Local ones he had gotten from the newspapers in the paper basket in the living room of the orphanage that was perpetually ignored by the other orphans. He used the internet to fish out the global, and more interesting ones.

 ** _The biggest diamond ever discovered is in a white dwarf nicknamed 'Lucy' about 50 light years away. It is an impressive 10 BILLION TRILLION TRILLION CARATS._** _The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics discovers the universe's largest known diamond, white dwarf star BPM 37093. Antonio Kanaan and a team of researchers of the Whole Earth Telescope estimated, on the basis of these asteroseismological observations, that approximately 90% of the mass of BPM 37093 (V886 Centauri) had crystallized._

Inaho looked at the picture of the largest diamond founded so far. People make such a fuss over things like this. Scientists would love to analyze them to find the secrets of the universe and improve humanity. People pay attention to it because it's worth a lot of money. Yuki-nee's greedy about money too. Inaho couldn't see the appeal other than the world making it a necessity to gain essentials that are tagged with prices instead of free like in the jungles or mountains. _Then again, jungles and mountains would demand lives being at risk. I suppose money is a lesser…_ Inaho racked his brain for the word he was looking. _Collateral._

He closed the sensationalist news speech and opened the more generic website for more information about the Lucy diamond. It was a variable white dwarf star of the DAV, or ZZ Ceti, type, with a hydrogen atmosphere and an unusually high mass of approximately 1.1 times the Sun's. It is about – Inaho was awed – _fifty light-years_ from Earth, in the constellation Centaurus, and vibrates; these pulsations cause its luminosity to vary. Like other white dwarfs, BPM 37093 is thought to be composed primarily of carbon and oxygen, which are created by thermonuclear fusion of helium nuclei in the triple-alpha process.

A lot of the words were lost on Inaho. He knew vaguely what asteroseismological means from the word itself – it has to do with stars and oscillations. But he has no idea what DAV, or ZZ Ceti type means. Nor does he know what thermonuclear fusion and triple-alpha process means, but he suspected he can understand them once he grabbed some books about nuclear from the library. Inaho quickly found that looking things up on the internet can be messy and overloading at once. Educated books will give him a better understanding of a concept – better than reading the same concept from a journal at least, those things are confusing and sometimes are even contradictory against others that are studying the same concept. Research and studies from various people are funny that way according to Yuki-nee.

"Someday we will foresee obstacles~"

Irritated that he's brought back to the same song when he had managed to lose himself in his reading, Inaho picked up his book and pencil he had brought from the orphanage. It was old and tattered and half of it was wet when Nakamura Akame spilled her glass of water onto it because it was contaminated with a dead fly. She did it during dinner a couple of days ago when the orphanage house-brother was just going to pass the plate so Inaho wasn't going to voice a complaint lest that particularly easy to get annoyed house-brother decided he can afford to go to bed on an empty stomach. He had eaten quietly, put his book by the windowsill and waited for it to dry, accepted Yuki-nee's encouraging words to compensate the ruined pages as he went to sleep, and made sure to steal Akame's stash of stolen candies when she and her sister went to the restroom.

"Through the blizzard~"

With his left hand fishing his pocket for an artificial apple-flavored candy, his right hand noted down 'nuclear' as a topic he will pick up on books later.

"Through the blizzard~"

He ate the candy – depositing the wrapper in his pocket – and surfed through the internet to find more topics he'll try to read more. He was glad that the girl's pretty voice and repetitive lines are white-noise shortly after.

Seven hours later, at exactly sixteen hundred, the librarian pushed away her logbook and personal ledger as a brown haired child stacked up several heavy books onto the counter. "Hello, Inaho-kun."

Red eyes – and it's so strange and so dangerous for a child to have such rare eyes – looked into hers and went back to his books. "Hello, Matsuda-san." The child didn't offer more small talks and Matsuda took no offense, understanding that he just wasn't the type to start small talks, and took his library card and began to take lists of the books.

She found a way to break the silence when she saw the book titles he had picked up. "Wow, I knew you have been getting bored with some of the high school science books, but I didn't think you'd be tackling on such advanced subjects like dark matter and quantum mechanics." She wasn't sure if he actually understood the things he read or if he was just borrowing the books to fool people to think he's some sort of prodigy, but he hadn't boasted, and he did it too frequently and consistently for it to be a false act. It's impressive. She had never even gotten interested in simple subjects such as astronomy or biology when she was six. She hoped school won't be too boring for Inaho that he burns out and neglect his brain.

"They sound interesting. And I like reading," Inaho said blandly. All of the words he said sound bland, a fact she found very strange too. His face broadcast nothing for the world.

"You know you don't have to study for the mere sake of studying. Why, I've never heard of that. You should be studying to be successful in the future soon! You don't want to end up as a garbage man or something, not with how talented and smart you are," Matsuda said.

"I'm not. Talented that is. Smart, I can accept. And I'm not reading for the mere sake of studying. That's pointless and boring, according to Yuki-nee. Yuki-nee said I should study to make people like garbage men live a better life, though I'm not sure how, which is why I'm reading as much as I can. Half of the other reason is because I find it a fun hobby." Inaho accepted the books – not looking at Matsuda's stunned expression – and put them in his backpack, slipped in his library card in the inner pocket, and left the library after a brief struggle with the heavy doors.

If only her son and daughter could be as studious as that. They were more interested in developing games, convinced that they'll make a great success of it. Honestly, she could only hope. Matsuda saw absolutely no appeal in games of shooting and collecting trinkets like pirates.

Matsuda was a bit concerned that Inaho Kaizuka seemed to have no social life at all, but he didn't seem to be lying that he has someone to talk to outside of his library visits, and he doesn't look sick and he didn't favour any particular part of his body so she knows he was physically fine. Matsuda sighed, and looked at two other children that were sitting all alone by themselves, and in the general direction of one who was probably losing herself in music. They were not so lucky like Inaho it seems. But it was nothing more than average school yard bullying. If she found any indication that their sullen demeanors were born at the hands of their family or caretakers… her camera is ready for evidence.

* * *

C= C= C= C= C=┌(;・ω・)┘

Ha. Yeah. I tried to write Aldnoah Zero starting from a young Inaho, but I couldn't quite grasp the mind of a six year old child. I knew - _think -_ er, sorta, that I used to look up facts like that too on books or the internet, but only for the sake of curiosity and nothing like, looking for news that may or may not have an impact on society or _me_. But I'm a child with parents, Inaho's an orphan here. I have no idea if librarians would allow that, lending kids books that advanced or even letting them stay for so long (young kids, I mean. I sure as hell stayed in the libraries from the moment it was open till it's closed unless I have classes or need to eat and stuff). I've been writing an A.Z fic, and after some consideration I decided to take out this scene from a chapter. I think it's going to be a little bit redundant for the plot to progress. I don't possess the heart to delete this, tho...


End file.
